


Golden Girls and Dinosaurs

by epeeblade



Category: Golden Girls
Genre: Dinosaurs, Gen, Humor, Jurassic Park - Freeform, Misses Clause Challenge, Silly, not really a crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-17
Updated: 2014-12-17
Packaged: 2018-03-01 22:26:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2789915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epeeblade/pseuds/epeeblade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Picture it. Florida. 1992. A stunning yet mature Sicilian woman encounters something strange. Will she rise to the occasion or will the opportunity be snatched from her by her scheming ex-son-in-law?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Golden Girls and Dinosaurs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elegant_graffiti](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elegant_graffiti/gifts).



> I'd like to thank my beta, who I'll name once the reveal is up:)
> 
> To my recipient - I do hope you like this. We matched on Golden Girls, but then I saw how much you liked Jurassic Park and this bit of silliness showed up in my brain. Thank you for letting me write this for you!

**After**

“Picture it, Florida, 1992.” 

“A beautiful, yet mature, sicilian woman, risks it all to bring you the truth…”

**  
Before  
**  
“There’s a dinosaur at the docks.” Sophia made this pronouncement as the door slammed shut behind her.

Dorothy kept working on her crossword puzzle, until her mother made it halfway across the room and her words filtered through. “Ma? What were you doing at the docks?”

Blanche looked up from her flower arranging. “Oh, what’s not the love down at the docks? Sailors in their white uniforms, hugging the curves of their tight butocks…” Her eyes glazed over.

“Are you sure that ship hasn’t sailed, Blanche?” Dorothy was used to this kind of interruption. She turned back to her mother, certain she’d figured it out. “You’ve been gambling again, haven’t you?”

Sophia clutched her purse closer, a sure sign of hiding something. As she shifted, a pair of dice fell out of the not quite closed hinged opening. “A craps game here or there never hurt anybody.”

Dorothy reached down to pick up the dice. She frowned as she got a good look at the red cubes. “Ma, these are Pa’s weighted dice.” Her father had used them to teach her and her siblings the dangers of gambling - namely never let your opponent choose the dice. 

“Of course they are. How do you think I hold my own?” She grabbed them out of Dorothy’s hand. Despite her age, ma was quick.

“You’re going to get yourself beat up,” Dorothy lectured, imagining all sorts of unsavory types down at the docks.

“Please. I play for pennies with Fisherman O’Malley, you know, the guy who takes the kids on the shark watching tours.”

“Dolphin watching, ma.” 

“Dolphins, sharks, they’re all fish to me.”

“Dophins are mammals, ma.” 

Only later, after Sophia had gone to her room for her afternoon nap, did Dorothy wonder about what she’d actually seen on the docks.

  
***  


Dorothy knew when the doorbell rang that it would be bad news. When she opened the door and found her ex-husband Stan, she was vindicated.

“Hi, it’s me, Stan.”

“Go away, Stanley.” Unfortunately he managed to catch the door before she could slam it shut on him.

From experience she knew the best thing to do was just let him have it out. Then he’d be out of her life again until the next big crisis. So Dorothy just rolled her eyes as he followed her inside the house.

“Look, babe, sorry to drop in on you like this….”

He wasn’t really sorry. Or, hell, maybe he was. Maybe that’s why he kept dropping in after 38 years of marriage and one messy divorce. “What is it this time, Stanley? You need a new toupee?”

He shook his head. “No, the last one fits me great.”

It was sliding to the side a bit, but she didn’t remark on that. “Then what?”

“I got this opportunity - it’s a very good opportunity - to invest on the deal of a lifetime.” Stan started to get animated, gesturing with his hands. 

“Let me guess, inflatable dolls?” Stan wasn’t known for his business sense. Thirty-eight years of keeping their family finances together taught her that.

Stan looked away, which surprised her. “I can’t really tell you what...it’s...confidential. Right. I’m just a little short on cash…”

“Stanley…”

“I need two thousand dollars.”

“Get out.”

  
***  


Sophia was sure this would make them rich. She had discovered something no one else had and trapped it in one of the fishing cages O’Malley had lent her. Well, O’Malley had done much of the catching. She’d merely slammed the door of the cage shut when he’d shooed the thing inside.

The thing, which had to be a baby dinosaur - was about the size of a chicken, with reddish scales and a long slim jaw. It made meeping noises that tugged at her heart, but she knew better. Those teeth were sharp as steel.

As she pushed the cage - which sat on a dolly, once again borrowed from O’Malley - through the doorway, Sophia pondered who’d she call first. The news? No, this was bigger than that. She had to get this to Johnny Carson.

“Sophia! What are you doing with that chicken? If Blanche sees you bring it in here she’ll have a cow!”

Just her luck that Rose happened to be sitting in the living room. “It’s not a chicken. It’s a dinosaur.”

“Sophia,” Rose stood and put her hands on her hips. “Where would you find a dinosaur in Florida? Everyone knows they live in Scotland!”

“Rose…Just help me get this thing in the garage.”

Before they could wheel the cage anywhere, the front door slammed open, Dorothy striding inside followed by that baciagaloop Stan. Sophia immediately moved to stand in front of the cage, grabbing Rose and holding her in place.

“How many times do I have to tell you, Stanley, the answer is no.”

“If you said that when you were 16 we wouldn’t be dealing with this shmuck now.” Sometimes she couldn’t hold in her hatred of this man.

“Ma, as usual, not helping.” Dorothy whirled and then her eyes widened. “What is that you’re hiding?”

“What does it look like? Christmas dinner?”

“Sophia, where did you find that?” Now the baciagaloop got into the act. The nerve!

“Stay out of this, Stan, this is my mother, not yours.”

Now fingers were starting to point. This might be the best entertainment she’d had today.

“It’s my business when your mother has a top secret item in your living room!”

“This is what you’re investing in? A - a giant lizard?” Dorothy looked over at the cage.

“It’s a dinosaur,” Rose provided helpfully. “I’ve named her Bessie.”

Of course, that was the moment Blanche walked in. “What in heaven’s name is going on in here?”

  
***  


It was sheer good luck that Blanche had a cheese cake defrosting. Dorothy dug her fork in a little harder than necessary to get a decent bite. They’d left Stan in the garage with the...dinosaur, and had come back to the kitchen to solve the problem.

“I don’t understand why you brought it here in the first place.” Blanche said.

“Where the hell else was I going to put it?” Sophia gestured. “I live here.”

“Honestly, Ma, what were you thinking?”

“I was thinking we were going to be rich. Imagine us on Carson, leading the only living dinosaur out onto the stage.”

“Does it tell jokes?” Rose leaned forward, falling under the spell.

Dorothy made a disgusted sound. “Rose, we’re talking about a real science experiment. This isn’t some cartoon. And Ma, it doesn’t belong to us. We have to return it.”

She scoffed. “If they wanted it so much they shouldn’t have let the damn thing go walking down the docks.”

“Do dinosaurs really walk? I think it’s more of a waddle,” Rose took another bite of cheesecake.

“A bigger question would be how does that thing in Sophia’s cage look like a mini-velociraptor when those went extinct about 75 million years ago.” Blanche popped a strawberry in her mouth and looked affronted when they others just stared at her. “For heaven’s sake, I worked at a museum. I used to read the other exhibits! And there was this paleontologist - Henri. He was from France. He would spend all day talking about his bones…”

“Blanche!” Dorothy knew if she didn’t stop her now, Blanche could go on for quite some time. 

“The slut’s got a point.” Sophia said. 

“Ma!”

“I mean, who are these guys? Stanley tell you anything about that?”

Dorothy shook her head. “No. And that’s what concerns me.” There was something not quite right about this whole deal, from Stan wanting to invest, to the secrecy surrounding it. There was one thing she knew, Dorothy didn’t want to have her hands in it. A good Italian girl from Brooklyn knew when to not get involved. “We have to bring it back. Tonight. Before they notice it’s missing.”

The others agreed, but not before Dorothy stole the last piece of cheesecake.

  
***  


This place looked so different in the dark. Sophia was used to coming down to the docks in the brightness of day, with the Florida sun pulsing down on her as she waved to the people she knew. Now every shadow seemed to hide a threat. And that would be true even if they weren’t hauling the cage, trying to find the shipping container where Sophia had seen her first dinosaur.

It would help if they hadn’t had to bring that schmuck Stan with them. At least he could carry the cage out of the car. She’d never admit out loud that he was good for something.

“Which way, Ma?” Dorothy whispered.

“Do I look like a compass?”

“Ma! You were the one who found the dinosaur!”

“I also don’t remember what I had for breakfast this morning.” She looked around for O’Malley’s boat, her waypoint at the docks, but of course, at night, he wasn’t out here fishing.

“This is absolutely ridiculous!” Stan said loudly. Of course he couldn’t be quiet. “You’re going to lose me this investment opportunity!”

“It’s always about money with you, Stan. And don’t forget that it’s my money you want to invest with.” 

Maybe it was over this way. Sophia squinted, but with her cataracts, it was impossible to see. She remembered it was near the big ships, where the storage cartons were waiting be to loaded up. As she was walking past, she had seen some of the dockworkers struggle to close one of the doors. Something roared, and she’d seen her first dinosaur. 

Little Bessie had come along later.

“You always do this, babe,” Stan was still yammering away. “That’s not what this is about.”

“I hate to interrupt,” Rose got between them. “But Bessie is gone.”

“Well there goes the neighborhood,”Sophia said.

  
***  


Dorothy couldn’t believe she was skimming a flashlight across the docks, calling “Bessie” under her breath. She was still stewing at Stan, who still had the ability to get under her skin after all these years. They’d all split up to look for Bessie, and somehow she’d gotten stuck with her ex-husband.

“Dorothy…”

“Stuff it, Stan, and look for a scaley chicken.”

“It’s a baby dinosaur.”

She whirled on him, holding the flashlight on his face. “Oh, so you feel like sharing now?”

He held up his hands. “It’s the future, babe. Genetic experimentation. They’re cloning real life dinosaurs. It’s amazing. I know a guy who knows a guy. Said he’d cut me in on some stock.”

“Hence the need for money.” Dorothy turned back to sweeping the docks. “Do you really think tiny chicken dinosaurs are going to make you rich?”

“They’re not all tiny…” Stan paused and she turned back. He pointed to one of the large cargo ships in the distance. “InGen. That’s the company’s name.”

It was already loaded with cargo, probably set to go tonight. Dorothy frowned at the size of the containers. Maybe they weren’t all tiny dinosaurs.

Before she could respond to Stan, a loud boom shattered the silence. Light streaked across the sky. “Ma!”

Dorothy started to run.

  
***  


“Ma, what did you do?” Dorothy followed the chaos and found her mother and Rose with a smoking flare gun.

“We found Bessie,” Rose pointed to the cage, with a door that was now duct-taped shut. “She just came when I called. She’s such a good chicken.”

“But we couldn’t find you.” Sophia hefted the gun. “So I borrowed a flare gun.”

“And I think you set someone’s boat on fire! Ma, what were you thinking!” Dorothy’s hands flailed in the air.

Stan grasped her elbow. “Babe, I think it’s time to get out of here.”

“Not without Bessie!”

Dorothy knew they couldn’t take the dinosaur with them. But they couldn’t leave her here either. “Come on, I have an idea.”

And that’s how they ended up leaving the cage at the ramp to the InGen’s cargo ship. Stan called his contact from a payphone. They made it away from the docks just as the black cars with tinted windows showed up.

Dorothy turned to her mother. “You are never going down to the docks again.”

  
***  


“And that, boys and girls, is the story about how I was involved in the beginnings of what you know as Jurassic Park.” Sophia closed the big book she used for a prop and looked out at the sea of children at the library’s storytime event. She loved volunteering. 


End file.
